Chapter 30
Chayse shivered in the wind as he slipped out of the hold’s darkness into a misty morning twilight on the Firasian Sea. With what he hoped was a sailor’s nonchalant gait, he strode across the deck. His mind whispered Alarccal with each plant of his foot.
Soon, he sighted the guard on watch. Chayse slipped through the shadows while he sized him up. Night and sea lulled this guard into a sloppy watch. The guard stood with his back braced against the rail and his eyes half closed. Any first mates on Captain Toric’s ships would have had this one flogged for as much.
Chayse paused, preparing himself for a dozen heartbeats. Sure he could quickly dispense of him. He crept along the rail. He no longer thought of the rune but his opponent. His concentration on the drop of the guard’s shoulder and weapon placement as he bent to pull at a loose loop in the rope at his feet.
Superstitiously, Chayse touched the hilt of the long knife at his left side, unsure if its runes spoke of life or death. He glanced up at the mast where Mek waited for his signal and took a step toward the academy man. And then one more step. The look of surprise in the guard’s eyes told him his disguise had faded. Chayse gestured with the dagger toward the sea. “You can take a swim on your own or with my help trail blood for the denizens of the deep.”
“I don’t recall Lord Norfall saying anything about bringing in some whelp of a boy.” The guard stepped over the coil of rope, a cruel grin slashing his face. Before the guard’s boot hit the deck, a short sword extended from his hand.
He realized this was the same guard that gave him the elbow to the head. “You know how to use that skiver?” Chayse drawled, crouching.
Though the swords had not responded to him, he felt their power. He quieted his mind, sensing this time they were attuned. He circled out onto the deck, hoping to keep the guard pinned against the rail.
The guard’s blade snicked out, testing him as he wove out of reach. Chayse danced in. His blade, an artist’s brush, tracked a crimson blossom across the guard’s cheek. A kiss from the blade called death, Chayse thought, but there was no power behind it, only his skill.
The guard slipped left along the rail, kicking the coil of rope into Chayse’s feet and lunging for him with his sword. Instinctively, Chayse hopped back. He brought his blades together, trapping the guard’s sword blade. With a twist, it flew across the deck to clatter against the mast.
Propelled by the fear of being heard, he leaped in. Using the surprise and momentum, he flipped the guard over the rail and into the waiting sea. Relieved, he slid his long daggers into his belt, thanking the Freeport guards for their tutelage. Chayse picked up the guard’s dropped sword and tossed it over the side, refusing to let the thoughts of what he’d just done invade the space of what lay ahead.
Mek still sat on his precarious perch and Chayse mind-spoke to his friend as if Mek rode in the hood of his cloak. Rewarded with an immediate response from his partner, the boy grinned. This would indeed be a handy skill, he thought, as he once more took up the chant, “Alarccal,” and headed for the aft deck.
The runesmith allowed Thysl to take the lead with a slight nod. The dragonkin hurried toward the stairs leading to the foredeck.
“Is there anything you need for the song?” Marley asked, curious about Thysl’s ability. There were few Windsingers. And their talent so coveted by the shipping trades that, outside the clan or community of the singer, few knew of their talent or how it worked.
Marley, in all his years, only recalled meeting a handful of others. “If not, I will ward the stairs until you have finished,” he said when Thysl shook his head. Already Marley could see the dragonkin was deep in concentration.
To make a barrier across the stairs was a matter of asking the air to refuse passage. Marley’s voice, like the wind, low and insistent, called to the air and bid that it ‘hold’ on the authority of the Guardian Ymarii. The air on the stairs took on a translucent shimmer as it coalesced into an invisible, impenetrable wall.
Behind him, he heard the first notes of an ethereal melody twisting around the moisture-laden wind. He glanced at the leaden sky, unwilling to let go of the dark. Thysl’s song spiraled up and out, now filled with the bitter anguish of friends and family lost.
Sounds of fighting from the starboard side filtered past the dragonkin’s song and Marley glanced up to see if Mek still held true. Upon the mast, the squirrel sat with his back to him. He appeared riveted by what unfolded to the aft and out of Marley’s view.
When the swordplay fell silent and neither the dragonkin nor Chayse emerged from the starboard side of the cabin, the runesmith became concerned. The temptation to leave Thysl long enough to check on the rest of the group chewed at his gut. Distracted by worry for his friends, he didn’t notice the moment Thysl’s song changed.
Until the air on the foredeck seemed to inhale in expectation and exhale with the icy breath of retribution. Marley could only watch as a rumbling shake shivered through the hull and shimmied up the mast. Two weavers fled the starboard cabin as the shaking overtook Mek.
The halyard snapped. Mek tumbled from the top of the mast, racing the sail toward the deck. The runesmith lost sight of him when the wildly flailing canvas connected solidly with the panicked weavers. Chayse and the dragonkin remained unaccounted for and Marley turned with dismay, realizing he no longer heard the Windsinger’s song.
Thysl hung levitated mid-deck by a pair of translucent giants. Two more of the beings strode across the sea as if on dry land and rose up and smote the water. Marley made a wild dive toward Thysl as the waves crashed down upon them.
They tumbled across the deck. Somehow Marley hooked a hand into Thysl’s topknot as wave after wave threatened to wash them overboard. The boat pitched them up, once more, toward the rail when the hand of a Titan reached out, snagging both Marley and Thysl by the cloaks.
Their heads hauled above the water, Marley gasped for breath and heard Thysl do the same. Still, before the salt had washed from his eyes, the call of Thysl’s half-sung Windsong dissipated and they plummeted back to the wave-washed deck. Then the four Thunder Titans vanished, leaving behind a sky of sorrow warring with an ocean of rage.